Who Heals the Healer
by Shaelesand
Summary: A healer learns the hard way what the answer is to that ancient question.


Who Heals the Healer?

Feyra closed her eyes against the day.  Not that it mattered at all.  The light still poured in the single window and filled the small white room.  It bathed her skin in warmth she desperately needed.

A decade ago she had dismissed her teacher when he had posed the question of who heals the healer.  Now she knew the answer, no one.

It didn't matter how long she laid here the only thing that changed was there was less time between now and the end.  Outside the wooden door, healers bustled around on their rounds stopping and giving automatic words of reassurance to patients and fixing the broken.  Occasionally the footsteps paused outside her door but it never opened.  Why would it?  She was dying and they had better things to do than try and make her comfortable.  Their platitudes were meaningless to her, their comfort hollow.

Feyra told herself she preferred the loneliness to the pity.  The sound of trainee hurrying through the hall, a horse calling to his herd mates, the peel of a bell, and even the song of birds outside her window only made her loneliness sharper. 

She heard the door open.  Feyra kept her eyes closed hoping the intruder would think she was asleep.  A weight settled on the edge of the bed.  A gentle, calloused hand stroked her cheek.

This was not the hand of a healer.

"Healer Feyra, you can't fool me."  A soft voice teased.

Feyra reluctantly opened her eyes.  A Herald sat next to her.  This Herald was vaguely familiar, but then most Heralds were vaguely familiar from their many and varied injuries.  The Herald had greying dark brown hair cut at her shoulder and lines fanning out from dark green eyes from being out in the sun.  Laugh lines were etched in a plain face that was perfectly ordinary.

"Please go away."  Feyra growled.

"No.  You never let us wallow in pity, perhaps you should take some of your own medicine."  The Herald smiled widely.  "Actually, that is a good idea.  It may inspire you to improve the taste."

Feyra glared at the Herald.

"You probably don't remember me.  So many Heralds come through these halls every year.  I am Herald Liona; I was in for a shattered pelvis four years ago."

Feyra did remember Liona now.  She had been a very recalcitrant patient and had refused to believe the Healers when they assured her they would have her walking and riding Circuit again in no time.  

"Is something wrong?  Have your hips started to pain you?"  Feyra asked in concern.

Liona shook her head.  "No, you and your colleagues did an excellent job patching me up.  I am here because I heard the same Healer that harped and harangued me to stop feeling guilty and wallowing in pity is now feeling guilty and wallowing in pity."

"I am not."  Feyra protested.

"Aren't you?  Instead going out and spending the last few months with your family and friends, you are hiding in here feeling sorry for yourself and feeling guilty that you can't fix yourself after all the people you have helped.  If there is anything a Herald knows it is feeling guilty."  Liona smiled warmly.  "Now, get up."  

Feyra found herself obeying and with Liona's help she eventually stood.  She battled a moment of vertigo.  

"So, what do we do now?"

"Now we go outside."  Liona ignored the wheeled chaired that was used for invalids and helped Feyra out the door into the hall.  They were the only people in the hall as they made their way slowly towards the door to the outside.  Feyra struggled to keep upright, even with Liona's help and couldn't even spare enough thought to ask why she was taking her outside.

The bright autumn sun blinded her when the door opened.  The air was crisp as a freshly picked apple and the smell of late blooming flowers perfumed the air.  Feyra had not been outside since the same leaves that littered the ground had just started to unfurl in the spring warmth.  Oddly Feyra did not feel cold.

As her eyes adjusted to the light she saw the slight smile on Liona's lips.  

"Shall we find a place to sit?"  Liona asked.

Feyra nodded.  The effort of coming this far had exhausted her.  Liona led the way to a padded bench under a nearly bear, ornamental apple tree.

Feyra leaned against the back of the bench and sighed. 

"Was it worth the effort?"  Liona asked as she took a seat next to the ill healer.

"Why would I want to just sit here and watch the world pass me by?"  Feyra asked harshly.

"It is only passing you by because you won't allow yourself to join it."  Liona pointed out.  "You would probably feel much better if you got out of that cell you call a room and at least watched the world.  Why don't you use the time left to you to go visit your brother and his family?  They are worried about you."

"I don't want them to see me like this."  Feyra protested.

Liona smiled.  "You mean as a human being?  Not an all powerful Healer?"

Feyra scowled at her.  The dark rings under her eyes and gaunt cheeks somewhat ruined the effect.

Liona laughed.  It was a rich, throaty sound.  "You know I am right."

"I would prefer to be remembered as what I was."

"Do you really think that new memories replace old memories?"  Liona challenged.  "Besides, they will remember you as the grouchy old aunt who always scolded them to take better care of themselves."

Feyra started to protest but couldn't, it was true.  

"Did you know your brother sends messengers every few days for updates?  He has sent messages to you asking for you to come home."  Liona said quietly, her dark green eyes seemed to see into Feyra's very soul.  "You should accept."

"I am not going to spend the rest of my life as a burden.  He has his family to care for and his lands to tend.  He does not need a sister who can't even lift her own glass."  Feyra said bitterly.  "Don't Heralds face their lives alone?  Is it so hard for you to believe others want that same solitude?"

Liona's eyes unfocused and a smile teased her lips.  "A Herald is never alone, not even in death.  You, however, will not even allow your friends to visit.  Do you really think your family would ever consider you a burden?  Would he offer if he didn't want you there?  You are too proud.  If you had a patient who was facing death and locked themselves in a room away from everyone, what would you do?"

Feyra knew what she would do; call the patient's family and mindhealers to coax them from their depression.  "Shouldn't you be somewhere else?"

"You wouldn't be out here if you didn't want to be out here."  Liona pointed out logically.

Feyra ignored her.  "I would appreciate it if you would send some one to help me back to my room." 

Liona said nothing.  Her gaze unnerved Feyra.  The silence between them was filled only by a bells tolling.

"Isn't that the Death bell?  Shouldn't you be with the others mourning your comrade?"

Liona smiled again.  This struck Feyra as an odd response.  "I have no one to mourn."  She stood and straightened her uniform.  "Someone will find you in a few minutes."

Before Feyra could protest Liona turned and walked away.

As Liona had predicted, a Healer appeared only a few minutes later.  

"You shouldn't have left your bed.  We have been searching for you."  He said as he helped her stand.  "Jenna said you might have gone off to mourn."

"Mourn?"

"Wasn't she once a patient of yours?"  The Healer's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Who was?"

"Herald Liona."

Feyra gasped and sank back to the bench.  

"I thought you heard.  We don't know what happened yet other than she was in the south."

"That is impossible."  Feyra protested.  "She couldn't be dead."

"I heard it from a Herald I am tending.  There is no doubt.  She died about a candlemark ago."

"But she just left, you must have passed her."  Feyra's voice started to rise.

"I passed no one."  The man was obviously starting to worry.

"You must have!"  Feyra insisted.  "She was about my height, a few years older than me, greying hair, green eyes, and wearing white.  You couldn't have missed her."

"There was no one."  The other Healer insisted.

Feyra shook her head in disbelief.  The Healer carefully helped her to her feet and guided her back to her room.

The encounter ran through her mind again and again.  

_'I have no one to mourn.'_  Liona's voice echoed in her mind.

Liona had been a ghost.  There was no other explanation.

Her room was almost completely dark when her door opened again.  A Trainee brought in a tray and set it across her lap.  "Can I get you anything else?"  The Trainee asked.

Feyra nodded.  "Paper and pen."

The Trainee nodded and left.

Several days later as she was being settled into her brother's carriage and had blankets tucked in around her.  The carriage rocked when her brother took his seat next to her.  He smiled warmly and wrapped her hand in his own.  

"What made you change your mind?"  He asked.  "I have been trying to get you to come home for months."

Feyra smiled.  "A former patient of mine stopped by for a visit."

"I am glad they convinced to come home."  

Feyra looked out the window at the passing buildings.  "She countered every argument I had for remaining and brought up a very important fact."

"What's that?"

She leaned against his arm.  "I am not dead yet."

"Who were they?  I would like to thank her."  Her brother made certain the blankets were tucked tightly around her.

Feyra didn't answer.  Instead she smiled slightly and watched out the window.  It had taken her a little while before she realised Liona had acted just as Feyra would have acted.

On a pillow in the now empty room in the House of Healing was a note for her old teacher.  On the single sheet were two sentences.

_I know who heals the Healer.  Those we Heal._


End file.
